


idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on his sword

by lesbianchrispine (Sher_locked_up)



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, It's Debatable, M/M, Unsafe Sex, at least, birthday fic, infidelity???, open secrets, sorry about this, sorta - Freeform, uhhh happy birthday zach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 00:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11070231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sher_locked_up/pseuds/lesbianchrispine
Summary: i slithered here from eden just to sit outside your door...





	idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on his sword

Chris can’t really decide if fate works for him or against him when he gets the evite (two days before the party, as if he can’t tell it was an afterthought) and the restaurant Miles rented out is only like, three blocks over from the Bowery. It’s not like he’d have to change his flight or anything but he isn’t trying to be across town from his 5:00 AM car service. He wouldn’t have bothered, then. Probably.

This place has Miles all over it. Just a shade too young and trendy for anybody’s fortieth, Chris would say, but then again he doesn’t really get New York the way Zach does. Maybe this is forty, in New York: dozens of tall, willowy types floating around with clear cocktails they never drain, effortless in linen trousers and slippery bias-cut dresses; passed hors d’oeuvres you can balance on the tip of your finger, except for the lamb chop lollipops, which are fucking _awesome_ but nobody seems willing to touch except Chris, who’s had six; a house chardonnay that costs $23.50 by the glass. It’s not like Zach can’t fucking afford it, but honestly, it’s like, _chardonnay._

“Chris!” Speak of the devil; Miles is doing a sort of half-jog, half-float across the room towards him with his right arm extended and clutching a full champagne flute, his left arm clutched by a skinny, shaggy-haired girl who can’t be more than nineteen, dim lighting or not. She’s sort of hanging off Miles like a live-action accessory and her eyes are half-lidded in a relaxed way that makes Chris want to ask if she’s packing. “I’m so glad you came!”

“Thanks, Miles,” Chris accepts the half-hug, the air-kiss next to each of his cheeks with decent grace. “Glad the timing worked out. Thanks for the invite.”

“Oh, don’t even mention it! I mean, the moment Zachary told me you’d be in town I just could not believe the luck! I’d have sent it sooner, if I’d realized.”

“No worries.” Chris doesn’t bother wondering why he wasn’t invited anyway, even if he were in LA that weekend. He’s not stupid.

“I seem to have lost track of the birthday boy… I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” Miles grins and makes the kind of studied gesture Chris is sure he picked up from watching like, old Hollywood films or something. “But please, enjoy! It’s all my treat. A birthday gift—well, _one_ of.”

He winks and giggles and lets himself be dragged off in the direction of the patio out back. Well at least now Chris knows where to look.

Chris didn’t get Zach a birthday gift. He hadn’t really thought about it, if he’s honest. It’s not like he doesn’t know exactly when Zach’s birthday is, exactly how old Zach is turning every year on June 2. He might even have sort of a nasty habit of calling Zach every year at midnight, Chris’s time, just to be an ass about it. About Zach getting old, how he’ll always be older than Chris is; about Zach _still_ living in New York because what the fuck, isn’t he sick of it already? Doesn’t he miss wearing flip-flops year round and good tacos and picking fruit right off the tree?

Doesn’t he miss _anything_ about LA?

And yeah, Chris isn’t stupid, so he doesn’t pretend not to know where that really leads. There’s a difference between knowing it and letting yourself think it, right out loud inside your own head, and therein lies the tenuous grip Chris has on the whole thing. He can’t do anything about it, so he’s not trying to go out of his way to be miserable. Zach can be happy here, and he can be happy in LA. There aren’t any rules against that.

He really and truly does not recognize a soul here besides Miles. He’s kind of okay with it—makes it easy to pull up a seat at the bar and nurse a double bourbon rocks without attracting too much attention. One thing he can say for New York is everybody is too cool to care who he is or what he’s doing. Even the bartender, whose eyes flickered casual recognition when Chris made his order, has gone back to playing Candy Crush or whatever on her cellphone while she waits for the next patron to deign to need something from her. At least if he’s going to be awkward and alone it’s in New York, where everybody’s awkward and alone and prefers it that way, so they just assume you prefer it, too.

“Buy me a drink? It’s my birthday.”

Chris closes his eyes and leans back into the low rumble of Zach’s voice and briefly presses the back of his head to Zach’s chest. Zach huffs a breath into his hair and Chris laughs, stands, pushes himself into Zach’s arms and just fucking _squeezes._

“Whoa,” Zach laughs, hugs back just as hard, presses his mouth into the side of Chris’s neck and nuzzles just enough to tease, the sandpaper whisper of stubble on stubble, a warm, wet press of lips and maybe a little tongue. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“Likewise, man, likewise. I’d buy you ten drinks if I thought they’d let me pay for it but apparently your boyfriend’s already picked up the tab.”

Zach wrinkles his nose. “He’s always doing that. I try to tell him, Miles, baby, you’re a model. Let _them_ pay for _you._ ”

Chris can tell Zach’s joking, but in that way he only jokes about things that are seriously fucked up. “Ah, let him. Remember that first _Trek_ paycheck? It was fun to be able to treat everyone, finally.”

“Yeah, but like, to tacos and pitchers of margaritas.” Zach motions for Chris to sit, seats himself to Chris’s right, picks up Chris’s drink and helps himself to a mighty large swallow.

“Yikes, dude. You thirsty?”

“Something like that.” He looks distracted, and Chris doesn’t know how well these people even know Zach, if they know what it means when Zach’s gaze keeps jumping around, (from Chris’s hands to Chris’s face, to his lap and back again over his shoulder), unable to settle. If they know the difference between Zach holding his phone in his hand or in his front trouser pocket, or laying it flat on the bar in front of him, face-down.

“Some party,” Chris says. He can’t quite bring himself to offer a real compliment but it’ll pass.

“Are you kidding me? This is Miles’s party. I’m just a good reason to throw it.” Zach laughs and tosses back the rest of Chris’s drink. “You wanna get out of here?”

Chris blinks at him. “You want to—you wanna leave? Dude, it’s _your_ birthday.”

“I very seriously doubt anyone will miss me.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame, Zachary.”

“Oh yeah?” Zach’s eyes glitter like onyx. “Why’s that?”

“Because somebody should always be missing you.” Chris grins, almost apologetically, and ducks his head. _Lame_ , he thinks to himself, _you definitely could not have just been more lame_.

But Zach just smiles like Chris has told him the most marvelous secret and says, “But that’s what I have you for, Christopher.”

And just like that, it’s on.

“I’m at the Bowery,” Chris offers.

“Let’s go.”

 

*

 

Before Chris can even raid the minibar Zach’s pulling a pint of bourbon and a joint from some magical pocket tucked inside his lightweight coat, and so they toast: to getting old, to getting laid; to getting _paid_. They tell bullshit stories, laugh together because they can. Generally avoid coming within striking distance of a nerve they oughtn’t touch.

It’s a little after one when Zach levels him with a heavy, inscrutable look, and then abruptly stands to pull his sweater and tee shirt over his head. His shoes are long discarded, and he flops onto his back, on top of Chris’s messy bed, and lights up.

“Fuck, yessss,” Chris groans, pulls off all his own clothes except his grey boxer briefs, and lies down next to Zach, on his side with his chin in his hand, propped up on one elbow. He reaches out with his other hand and runs his fingers through Zach’s chest hair, which is just as thick as always, but somehow _less_. “What happened here?”

“It’s manicured.”

“What, like a lawn?” Zach glares a little, but passes the joint. “Not that it isn’t nice,” Chris adds on the inhale, and then blows smoke rings into the air. “It’s just, you know. It’s nice without all that, too.”

And there—that’s what Chris hates, the way Zach’s sighs always sound a little helpless, a little unhappy, but like he’s relaxed into it, like he’s fine with being a little helpless and unhappy, like he’s used to it and it’s become just the way life is now. Chris fucking _hates_ that, but it’s not like he can say anything. It’s not like he ever knew fuck-all about making Zach happy.

“Won’t Miles wonder where you are?”

Chris hates himself even before he’s finished saying it, would give anything to take it back, but Zach doesn’t seem particularly bothered. He just pulls long and thoughtful on the joint, hands it back to Chris with a cocked eyebrow and says, “Miles knows where to find me.” And to hell with it if Chris knows what the fuck to think about _that_ ,  but he supposes regardless, it’s fair. He’s had Zach—but no, that’s not right. Nobody _has_ Zach. Zach lends himself sometimes, sometimes so wholly Chris can almost believe him, but if anything, Zach has Chris. And Zach’s had Chris a lot longer than he’s had anybody else so it’s not like it’s a huge surprise if everybody knows about it. Has always known about it.

Chris twists and leans over Zach and puts the joint out in the empty glass on the nightstand and stops on his way back, holds himself over Zach and looks his fill. Zach’s face is like something he can’t even think about as a person anymore, not really. It’s all strong features and textures, warmth and bite, it’s sharp and unyielding and it’s oh so loved. He braces himself for rejection, an old habit that’s never quite died, before he leans in and licks at Zach’s bottom lip.

“Hi,” he breathes.

Zach grins and then his hands are all over Chris, pushing inside the waistband of his underwear and gripping his ass hard, one warm, dry finger already inching down and in.

They don’t use condoms, never have. Chris isn’t sure if it’s because he’s hopelessly stupid or hopelessly romantic or just fucking hopeless. He doesn’t do this with anyone else, not anyone. He doesn’t ask about Zach. He doesn’t want to think Zach would be any different, doesn’t want to know, not particularly.

Then it’s hard and rough, the good kind of pain, it hurts like you need something to hurt when you’ve spent too long not really feeling anything at all. It hurts like they’ve accomplished something. They wipe themselves off half-heartedly on the bedsheets and lie naked, Zach’s leg hooked over Chris’s, as they smoke the rest of the joint. Chris catches the neon blare of the alarm clock and groans. It’s almost three.

“Fuck,” he says, “I have a car in like, two hours.”

Zach laughs, like an asshole. “That sounds like some poor planning, Pine. Change your flight. You can afford it. We’ll eat omelettes and then I’ll drive you.”

The thing is, if Zach were remotely serious about it, Chris would do it. Chris would cancel his flight altogether, stay here at the Bowery until he was dragged out by his hair, if Zach wanted him to. He’d go down to the goddamned hotel kitchen himself and make Zach’s stupid egg white omelette with peeled bell pepper and crimini mushrooms by hand, if he thought it would make any goddamned difference.

Instead he laughs too, pats Zach’s thigh. “You know you can’t do that. I can’t do that.”

“Yeah,” Zach says, “I know.” He puts his hand over Chris’s, moves it with intent. “But we can do this.”

And they can—they can do this. They’ve always been good at this, _too_ good at this, this dance of moving toward and away from each other in weird little orbits, rubbing up against one another in all the ways that feel so good until they’re rubbed raw and aching when the cold, clean air fills the space between them again.

“Yeah,” Chris says, stubbing out the end of the joint, “we’ve got all night.”


End file.
